Against a Trump regime that is totally unacceptable, we’ll need resistance that’s sustainable. Like a healthy forest, the resistance will depend on great diversity to thrive -- a wide range of people engaging in a vast array of activities. And our resistance will need community.

 

I’m not talking about the facile gloss of the word “community” that often follows an adjective denoting race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. The kinds of community that will make ongoing resistance possible have little to do with demographic categories. The most powerful, most vital bonding will be transcendently human.

 

Facing a Trump presidency, we’ll have an imperative opportunity to go deeper as individuals and groups of people working together -- nurturing and growing the social, cultural and political strength that can overcome the Trump regime.

 

Since World War I and the initiative of J. Edgar Hoover, and right up through all the no-fly and terrorist-watch lists of today, the U.S. government has kept unconstitutional lists of people, largely or in part on the basis of their national or ethnic heritage or their political activism. These lists were part of the process of interning in camps Germans and German-Americans during World Wars I and II, and Japanese-Americans and Japanese during World War II.

In 1936 President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the creation by the Office of Naval Intelligence of a list of Japanese-Americans who would be the "first to be placed in a concentration camp" once a war could be started. In 1939 FDR ordered the ONI and the FBI to create a larger "custodial detention index" of primarily Japanese-, German-, and Italian-Americans, renamed and continued as the "security index" by Hoover after Attorney General Francis Biddle ordered it shut down.

 


 

Donald Trump says he wants to stop overthrowing governments and turn toward peace. But not only does he also say he wants to increase the military spending that produces more wars, but he’s considering for Secretary of so-called Defense someone whose entire outlook is offensive in every sense of the word.

Here’s James Mattis in his own words:

“So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling.”

Of course any wars continued or launched will be packaged as “last resorts” and “necessary evils” and so forth. But this guy will be drooling for blood with the glee of a sadist. War is his drug, or what Donald Trump would call his “sneaking into women’s dressing rooms.” Here’s Mattis:

“There is nothing better than getting shot at and missed. It’s really great.”

Not only is war the force that gives Mattis’s life meaning, but it’s his ideology, his worldview, his delusion in which the counterproductive can be seen as effective. Here’s Mattis:

Map of Canada with red and white image of flag on the map

We live in a racist patriarchy. If you followed the 2016 Election and possess any sense of social justice, that is obvious. Those of us who are white and heterosexual have a distinct advantage over those who are not; those of us who are cis male are even more privileged. 

Many of us who possess such privilege are deeply troubled that our friends without privilege are discriminated against. Many people like me have expressed interest in moving to Canada to escape the current political climate of hate. However, moving to Canada is the pinnacle of privilege. If the we move to Canada, we are abandoning our friends to avoid witnessing their suffering. 

Trump’s appeal is based on privilege. 

Trump’s hate machine is focused on people who do not possess privilege. If you would actually be able to move to Canada, you are privileged. You will be fine. The non-privileged need you here. (With that said, there are certainly exceptions to this, especially within the LGBT community.)

People at voting site in Africa

If this year's U.S. presidential election was held in a foreign nation, the U.S. State Department would not certify it as a "free and fair election." If this occurred anywhere else in the world the report by our government would conclude that there is a "suspicion of fraud or error."

On Monday, November 7, 2016 the U.S. government denounced elections in Nicaragua, stating that they were “deeply concerned by the flawed presidential and legislative electoral process” and that they were concerned there was no “possibility of a free and fair election” in that country on November 6. The statement explained that: “In advance of the elections, the Nicaraguan government sidelined opposition candidates for president, limited domestic observation at the polls and access to voting credentials, and took other actions to deny democratic space in the process. The decision by the Nicaraguan government not to invite independent international electoral observers further degraded the legitimacy of the election.

In Columbus, the looming Donald Trump presidency has added urgency and intensity to protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline. On November 16 the student group Socialist Students organized a demonstration on the Ohio State University campus.

“They’re building the pipeline through sacred Sioux burial grounds,” said Socialist Students member Mia Zerkle.  “This is the equivalent of destroying somebody’s church, or disrupting the Arlington National Cemetery. This is infringing on their rights and everything they believe in.”

 “This isn’t only an issue about the environment,” said Rachel Rouwenhorst, who studies ecology and evolution at OSU. “This is about Native American sovereignty. Corporations shouldn’t be putting pipelines through their burial grounds, prayer sites, and water supply.”

Rouwenhorst called for a boycott of the banks that are investing in the pipeline, including CitiBank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, US Bank, PNC Bank, JP Morgan Chase, UBS, and Goldman Sachs. “You can close your account with them and use a credit union, or a bank that is not funding this pipeline,” she said.


 

Remember the satirical "Billionaires for Bush" protesters? Around this time in 2008 I asked them to become Oligarchs for Obama, and they refused. But I predict Tycoons for Trump will be born this month. Inequality, like war and climate destruction, has its face now.

Chuck Collins' book, Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good, presents the problem of inequality as well as any I've seen. Collins was born into wealth, gave it away, but still refers to himself as one of the wealthy, perhaps because of all the lasting privileges wealth brought him. Collins sites other examples, as well, of the wealthy putting their wealth to better use than hoarding.

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